Zabihullah Mujahid
By Ayaz Gul
VOA News
September 30, 2024
Islamabad — The Taliban said Monday that their security forces had killed and captured several “key members” of a regional Islamic State affiliate for plotting recent terrorist attacks in Afghanistan, alleging that the suspects had crossed over from Pakistan.
Zabihullah Mujahid, the Taliban spokesperson, listed the claims and so-called successes against Islamic State-Khorasan, or IS-K, locally known as Daesh, in a formal statement without providing evidence to support them.
The assertions came after the country’s three immediate neighbors and Russia jointly urged the de facto Kabul government this past Friday to take “visible and verifiable actions” against transnational terrorist groups, including IS-K, on Afghan soil.
Mujahid said the IS-K operatives in question had been involved in several recent attacks in Afghanistan. They included a suicide bombing in the Afghan capital earlier this month and a May gun attack in the central city of Bamiyan, he added.
Both attacks resulted in the deaths of at least ten people, including three Spanish tourists, with IS-K claiming credit for them at the time.
The Taliban spokesperson said that IS-K insurgents had established “new operational bases and training camps” in the Pakistani border provinces of Baluchistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa after fleeing Afghan counterterrorism security operations.
“From these new bases, they continue to orchestrate attacks, both within Afghanistan and in other countries,” he claimed, noting that “some of the arrested individuals had recently returned to Afghanistan from the Daesh Khorasan training camp” in Balochistan.
Islamabad has not immediately responded to the Taliban’s allegations, which came two days after neighboring Pakistan, China, and Iran, along with Russia, at a meeting in New York this past Friday, urged the Taliban to eradicate bases of IS-K and other transnational terrorist groups in Afghanistan.
The ministerial meeting warned that these Afghan-based terrorist entities “continue to pose a serious threat to regional and global security.” According to a joint statement released after the huddle, the participants recognized the Taliban’s efforts in combating IS-K.
“They called on de facto authorities to take visible and verifiable actions in fulfilling the international obligations and commitments made by Afghanistan to fight terrorism, dismantle, and eliminate all terrorist groups equally and non-discriminatory and prevent the use of Afghan territory against its neighbors, the region, and beyond,” the statement stressed.
It identified the groups in question as IS-K, al-Qaida, Eastern Turkestan Islamic Movement, ETIM, which opposes China, anti-Iran Jaish ul-Adl, and the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan, TTP, as well as the Baloch Liberation Army, BLA, both waging attacks on Pakistani security forces and civilians.
The United Nations, in a recent security assessment, also described TTP as “the largest terrorist group” in Afghanistan, with several thousand operatives, noting that IS-K activities in the country are also turning into a significant regional threat. It noted that the group had intensified cross-border attacks in Pakistan since the Taliban regained power three years ago and is being facilitated by the de facto Afghan rulers.
A new report issued Monday documented nearly 1,000 deaths of civilians and security forces in Pakistan during the first nine months of 2024. The Islamabad-based independent Center for Research and Security Studies stated that most of the fatalities resulted from attacks by TTP and BLA-led insurgents.
Pakistani authorities have consistently urged Kabul to extradite TTP leaders and militants to Islamabad for trial for instigating deadly violence in the country.
The Taliban has rejected Pakistani and U.N. allegations, saying they are not allowing any foreign groups, including TTP, to threaten other countries from Afghanistan.
The United States has designated TTP and BLA as global terrorist organizations.
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